Never Let Go
by churros-theultimatefandom
Summary: Everyone knows Mother Gothel has an obsession with youth. Her motivation for this, however, is rather unclear...


_**Well, this story is a little look into the mind of Mother Gothel, why she ended up the way she did and all that jazz. If you guys as readers end up liking this, I have another idea that I might try out.**_

_**Disclaimer: Tangled does not belong to me. It belongs to Disney and all the amazing people that work there. **_

She was most afraid of being old. To know that her skin was wrinkled and worn and no longer recognizable from that of the young girl she once was. Her eyes and ears had lost some of their sensitivity to sight and sound; her bones creaked and ached every passing minute. Her hair turned gray and her legs no longer carried her anywhere she wished to travel. She was no longer desireable.

She was free of this fear when she was a child, blissfully unaware. Even throughout her young adult life, she was carefree and unable to realize that what was happening to her grandparents, to her parents, would also happen to her. When exactly the problem arose in her, she couldn't seem to recall, or perhaps it was just because she didn't want to remember the one man she had ever loved.

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She had met him when she was barely grasping the cusp of adulthood, still an impressionable child underneath. He was a charming peddler, just passing through her small village, and she did not heed her mother's advice that told her to keep her head when exchanging words with this stranger. Immediately, she was drawn to his dashing smile and clever wit and, despite all that lay between them, they fell in love. They spent many days together, sitting in the light of the sun, him tucking flowers into her hair. Often, he would grab hold of the end of her midnight curls, wreathed with flowers, and kiss the tips of them, smiling as if nothing could ever part them.

But it was not to last, for he was a peddler, and peddlers cannot stay in one location for too long before their wanderlust overcomes them. She could see deep sorrow in his eyes as he bid her a sorry farewell and trod off on the dusty road away from town, looking back to see her heartbroken face, but never stopping. He had promised her he would return and she held that promise close to her, even as the days and nights passed. However, the spell the promise seemed to have cast over her eventually broke, and she chose to go out and look for him, so they could be together once more.

For years she had waited for her love to return, and for years she wandered the land searching for him. One day she looked into the calm water of a pond and discovered a face that was barely familiar to her, one with skin that seemed to almost sag and cheeks that seemed almost sunken. Her hair was beginning to streak with gray. However, it was alright, because her eyes still shone with the light of a love that would not die and a joy that was young and vibrant. It was near this pond that she discovered the town with the peddler that she had been waiting for many years to find.

She entered the town square without much hope of finding him, as it was such a very small town, but there he was, sitting on the edge of the fountain and offering his wares to those around him. There was no room for doubt, as his eyes still sparkled with merriment and his smile hadn't changed but for a few wrinkles. She called his name, almost bursting in her happiness, but when he looked her way, he stared blankly at her, with no recollection dawning upon his handsome face. He didn't know her anymore. He had moved on in his life, as peddlers do, and left her stuck in memories, alone.

There was no joy left in her eyes as she stumbled, half-blind from tears, back to the pond outside the town until she could not walk any more, dying inside of her thin husk of humanity. She sobbed for hours, unable to move or think, and when she finally collected herself, there was nothing left of the girl who had been there not one day before. Every wisp of her was gone. Instead, she knew that this face that was no longer familiar to her was no longer desirable to her peddler. Desperately, she tried to find something to undo this curse that time had seemed to put upon her. She wandered again, but with another aim, to find something that would make her young once more.

And once she found it, she would never let it go.

**_I hope that was sufficent for you guys, as I had a lot of fun writing it. If you liked it, or even if you thought it was kinda stupid, please review. I'd love to hear from you!_**


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